From all the evidence presented to prove the reference of the Levitical prohibitions to marriage, we may conclude, that the Puritan has failed to establish the contrary doctrine, which, at the close of his fourth chapter, he imagines to be fully proved. All the statutes refer to marriage; and as those which prohibit sexual intercourse between parents and children, brothers and sisters, uncles and nieces, prohibit, at the same time, all attempts to sanctify such intercourse by marriage; so it is with the prohibitions that respect a brother's wife, and a wife's husband. All are near of kin, and may not be approached. God has forbidden it by his law.
9. But the Puritan objects, (p. 8, 3d par.) "In our view, the fact that God commanded a man to marry a brother's widow, proves that there is no immorality in such marriages." Nor was there immorality in the marriages of brother's and sisters, when in the commencement of our race God commanded such near relations to marry. In the purpose of Abraham to slay his son, when God commanded him to "offer him as a burnt sacrifice," (Gen. 22:2; Heb. 11:17–19,) there was no immorality, but a signal
